I thought it was time i threw myself into a fast 5km. Rathfarmham 5km is a course i don't really like i did it 5 years ago and hated every minute of it and finished in 17:26. Its a race that you can get badly wrong which i did. 3 Months later i ran 16:43 in newmarket 5km.

I travelled up the night before and had a nice coke zero and pasta in zizi in dundrum followed by another coke and popcorn in cinema. In the morning i usually would have porridge, almond milk, raisons and nuts but this time i thought it would be too close to the race so some water and half a fulfil bar was my breakfast.

Conditions were perfect and there was a very high standard because of the dublin road championship was on the same day. I did my usual warm up stretchs and 2 mile warm up and walked down to the start at 15 minutes before the start to do some strides.

I didn't really think too much or worry about the race before hand, i knew i was in shape.... sub 16min shape but just said to myself to not look at my watch until 3km and take it handy up the hill. My aim was to hit 3km at 9:30.

The start was crazy and got stuck behind some slower runner and started to get frustrated because it was hard to pass people because of road works either side of the road. I finally got past and tagged myself at the back of a nice group at 1st mile.

At 3km i looked at my watch and it said 9:27 so said to myself keep "hand in the fire). Looked again at the watch at 4km 12:42 and said i will up the pace, upper the pace again at 600m to go and then 400m to go and shocked when i crossed 15:40. The official time was 15:46.

https://www.myrunresults.com/events/rathfarnham_5k_2022/4549/results/418

Delighted with that result all the hard work paid off.